Edge of End (16 page)

“
Elizabeth,” I called
loudly. “Where are you?”

No reply.

Maybe she hadn’t returned to her house
at all? Where was I supposed to look for her then?

“
Elizabeth,” I cried
again. “It’s Jonathan. I’ve come for you, Elizabeth, can you hear
me?”

There was nothing but
silence. I know I had rushed back for her, but I was also conscious
of the danger. What if the
town
had changed its mind, its plans like it decided
to keep me imprisoned in another house–for instance in
Elizabeth’s?

“
Elizabeth!” I called
breaking the heavy silence.

I strained my ears, and as I did, I
felt a great sense of gloom and uncertainty in my stomach. At the
same moment, I heard the sound of a quiet sob coming from my right.
There was a door there and I moved in its direction cautiously. It
stood ajar, and I peered in.

It was a bathroom. I yanked the door
open wide prepared for an attack by some unknown creature or a
demon.

The first image that struck me was a
bathtub full of reddened water, like blood, a little girl’s body
floating helplessly on the surface. I recoiled back in shock and
pulled my eyes away from the bathroom. When I looked back, the
bathtub was empty as though the blood and the girl had never been
there. I shook my head, rubbed my eyes, but the blood filled bath
and the body of the girl didn’t return.

Visions?

This one hadn’t been a vision I had
had before. It had seemed real.

Nonetheless, I walked in
more bravely, but slowly finding Elizabeth sitting on the white
marble floor her chin resting on her knees, her face hidden behind
her hair. She had changed her shirt and was holding mine which I
had given to her on the road back to the
town
entrance.

“
Elizabeth,” I exclaimed
happily. Kneeling down to her level, I placed my hand tenderly on
her shoulder. “What are you doing here? Elizabeth, can you hear
me?”

She didn’t reply immediately. She was
clearly far away, lost in her own mind or visions.

I waited.

“
Jonathan?” she muttered.
It was like she was checking to see if it really was me beside
her.

“
Yes, it’s me. Look at
me.”

She raised her head and finally turned
her red, full of tears and void of any life eyes towards me. “Is
this really you?”

“
Yes, I’ve come for you.
Get up, we’ve got to move,” I said hastily and pulled her up. “Come
on.”

Elizabeth was weak, visions and the
house had sucked enough strength from her. She stood on her feet
reeling dizzily. I took her in my arms so that she wouldn’t slink
to the floor again.

“
What happened to you?” I
whispered into her ear. “Why did you leave me?”

“
You can’t save both of
us, but you can save yourself. At least, one of us will survive,
Jonathan. I don’t want to trap you here forever.”

She let go of me and pulled her head
away. Her disheveled hair hung over her mouth covering the right
side of her face. I brushed it out of her eyes and looked into
them. Her eyes were dark and solemn, but they were also very deep.
They were so deep it seemed they could swallow me whole, and I
would fall and fall forever.

Elizabeth was ready to sacrifice
herself for me. She had left the café so that I could go and find
the passage.

Why
? I asked myself. She could have held onto me, onto the only
chance to live again, but she had me go and given up on saving
herself so easily. Did some things work in that way here–in
hell?

The
town
could steal your memories and
torture you by keep you a prisoner forever, but it wasn’t able to
make you stop feeling.

I lowered my head towards
hers and pecked a short kiss on her lips, “I’m going to leave this
damned
town
with
you Elizabeth.”

She blinked, and a delighted smile
appeared on her face. “It’s a big risk. You know that, don’t you?
Malcolm said nobody had ever done this before.”

“
Fuck Malcolm,” I cut her
off with a sharp gesture. “I know what I want and where I want to
go, and I’ll do it with you no matter what goddamned creature
stands in our way.”

For a moment, we gazed into each
other’s eyes in silence. I wondered what she was thinking about.
What was she searching for in my eyes?

“
Why?” she asked abruptly.
“Why me? Why have you come for me? We barely know each
other.”

That was a question I had already
asked myself. “Because there is still we.”

“
We?”

“
Yes. The we that is going
to challenge the town,” I said boldly.

“
Hah,” she allowed a
smile. “It’s impossible.”

“
If nobody has done it
before it doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” I said back. “Beside
Malcolm hasn’t been here forever, he couldn’t know every man who
passed the town.”

“
So you think the old man
helps you to find his own way out?” she asked.

“
You think so
too?”

“
It crossed my mind, but I
dared not to tell you,” she explained. “You were so absorbed by the
thought we’re dead and I’m an extra weight on your shoulders as
you–”

“
I didn’t tell that,” I
protested.

“
But you thought that,”
she shot back and I had nothing to say in return. My eyes would set
me up.

“
We’ve got to go now,
Elizabeth,” I managed to say. “We have to reach the light as soon
as possible.”

She stepped back out of my arms and
nodded. She held out my shirt, “Thank you.”

I took it from her and quickly pulled
it on.

“
Let’s go,” Elizabeth
said.

We left the bathroom happily, my hand
on her back protectively.

The living room was no longer empty.
Malcolm stood at the coffee table carefully examining the album
with the picture of the man and the girl in it.

As we entered he put it back down on
the table, “Nice house you have, Elizabeth. Your husband and
daughter, I guess?” he pointed to the album.

“
They might be, I don’t
know,” Elizabeth replied honestly. “What are you doing here?” she
asked.

She was clearly miffed that he had
showed up again. I had no idea what had been discussed when I had
been zoned out before. What did Malcolm tell her? But whatever he
had said to her had made Elizabeth despise him; that much was
obvious.

“
You really thought you, a
pair of newbies, would succeed this mission without my help?” He
laughed heartily his voice loud echoing in the room. “The youth. No
respect at all. And you think that I’m crazy.”

“
Will you help us?” she
asked surprised.

We needed Malcolm’s help
whether I wanted him or not. He knew the way to the light, he bore
a supernatural power too, and could guide us through the
town
. We were going to
have to put up with him.

“
He needs a favor in
return,” I added dryly. “What do you want us to do for
you?”

“
I’ll let you know when
the time comes,” Malcolm grinned broadly showing his old yellow
stained teeth. “We’d better hurry now. We need to cover as much
ground as we can before the town actually realizes what you poor
souls have planned.”

I let Elizabeth out of my hold and
moved towards Malcolm. I stood in front of him and bent my face
down towards his nose. I was a good head taller than he
was.

“
If you try to fool me, I
swear, I will rip you into little pieces and toss them on the
ground. You’ll have to suffer another eternity feeling those dogs
gnawing at your remains, and the demons sucking your
soul.”

“
That’s nice of you,”
Malcolm smirked. “Deal!”

I stared at him unconvinced, but then
my muscles began to relax.

“
Okay,” I let out a long
breath. “What’s the plan? Do we have one or we go out and
walk.”

“
We go out and walk,”
Malcolm said then added quickly, “What did you expect? A helicopter
by the door that will kindly fly us over the town? I’ll snap my
fingers and we’ll disappear and reappear at the light. You’re a big
guy Jonathan, you don’t believe in magic, do you?”

I peered down on my palms.

“
Oh no,” Malcolm smiled.
“Don’t mix up your power with magic. You always have power, it
keeps your soul in your body, gives you life. Here you don’t have
body so your power is released.”

“
How do you know that?”
Elizabeth asked.

“
Dear, you don’t think I
go to café only to drink and give my soul to that demon for nothing
in return, do you?” Malcolm said a satisfied smile pinned to his
face.

“
The barwoman,” Elizabeth
corrected.

“
She’s different. She
likes to chat.”

“
So she fills you with
information,” I said. “You have long conversations together. Wed
her, just so?” I teased.

Malcolm shook his head and thinned his
lips while Elizabeth came up to me and took my hand into
hers.

“
Jonathan? Let’s
go.”

Right then the house shook followed by
Elizabeth’s shriek. She fell into my arms, and Malcolm moved
cautiously back towards the wall. We looked up, our eyes drawn to
the ceiling.

“
What the hell is going
on?” Elizabeth burst out anxiously.

“
The house is moving on,”
Malcolm replied unfazed. “Somebody has left the town and was moved
into hell, I guess. I doubt anyone’s going to fall into heaven from
here.”

Malcolm was obviously
indifferent. It was almost impossible to catch him off guard or
even to shock him. He had witnessed everything in this
town
before.

I held on to the table until the quake
stopped. Everything quietened down as fast as it had started. An
unexpected gust of wind rushed through the corridor towards us,
ruffled our hair and then quickly escaped through the open window
in the living-room.

“
Is it over?” Elizabeth
asked.

“
Yes,” Malcolm moved away
from the wall. “Let’s go and see where we are.”

He winked at me sneakily as he spun
around and headed for the corridor. I frowned at him then put my
hand warmly around Elizabeth’s shoulder.

“
Let’s go and get out of
this place,” I said with great determination in my
voice.

When Elizabeth and I left the house,
Malcolm was at the steps staring at the road. The house was now
standing in front of the café, on the opposite side of the street.
We had overtaken seven or eight houses.

Instinctively, I stole a look at the
light radiating at the very end of the road. It was still shining,
which meant the hope within me could live on.

“
Is it bad?” I broke the
silence approaching Malcolm.

He eyed me indifferently. “Her time’s
running out. Her body is breaking down; it’s dying faster than the
others’.”

Elizabeth and I exchanged a quick
glance. She had clearly heard everything that had been said and
opened her mouth to answer back, but then thought better of
it.

“
It’s possible that her
house could reach the end before we make it out, right?” I asked,
but I already knew the answer.

Malcolm nodded, heaved a silent sigh
and made his way towards the fence. I looked at Elizabeth’s worried
face.

“
We’ll reach the light
faster, won’t we?” she smiled a false smile and walked down the
steps. “You’re with me now, Jonathan. I’m not afraid of
anything.”

“
That’s fine,” I gave her
a reassuring smile as I touched her cheek gently. “But we’d better
move fast. You can manage it, can’t you?”

“
Yes,” she answered, but
there was doubt in her voice.

I ushered her out of the yard, and
onto the road. Just by looking at the light beyond the horizon I
couldn’t estimate the distance–it could have been a mile, it could
have been five or maybe even more. What I did know was that it was
going to be a long and tiring trip.

“
Hey!” I called to Malcolm
as soon as he started off. He didn’t stop, he just nodded. “Can’t
we get a cab or something? You know, maybe a demon who’d drop us
off for a bit of our soul?”

Malcolm shook his head, mumbling
something under his breath. Elizabeth looked at me
flustered.

“
What? I tried to make a
joke,” I shrugged. Nobody replied.

A light breeze hovered around us
lifting the fine dust particles and throwing them into the dry and
really heavy air, and while it was difficult to breathe, it was
bearable.

It seemed insane, why did my soul have
to breathe at all? But, then why did my soul have a human
look?